Pancake Day

Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent. This day has many names, one of which is Pancake Day, referring to the old habit of using up all animal products, including eggs and milk, in the house before Lenten fasts begin.

Big A, Little A,

This is Pancake Day!

Toss the ball high,

Throw the ball low,

Those that come after

May say, "Heigh-ho!"

Many meals are appropriate for Mardi Gras. To start, I pick the things I'll be giving up for Lent and get some last tastes in, or I aim to use up my stashes of these tempting foodstuffs already on hand. Hence all the chocolate being eaten at our house. Some years I've gone the New Orleans Mardi Gras route and made gumbo. Barbara Kafka includes a delicious recipe in her excellent book, Soup: A Way of Life. Mm, my mouth is watering.

This year my family has put in a request for pancakes: Cottage Cheese Pancakes. These light but satisfying cakes were made for me by my mother, as they were for her by her mother before that. The recipe is inscribed in the notebook that started me off cooking in my first real apartment. Unfortunately, the last time I opened the book to this page, the recipe had been erased by a mysterious clear substance spilled across the Cottage Cheese Pancakes page. Egg white? I don't know, but here is my attempt to put together the pieces so you can celebrate Pancake Day in style. (Note: You may use this recreated recipe with confidence; it has been kitchen tested and no one noticed any differences. Or maybe they were just too busy mm-ing and oo-ing to fit a complaint in between bites of moist, tangy pancake dripping with butter and syrup.)

Cottage Cheese Pancakes

1 c. flour
1/3 c. sugar
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1 c. sour cream
1 c. cottage cheese
2 eggs
1 t. vanilla

Combine dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately. Slowly add wet to dry. Stir until ingredients are incorporated, but allow the batter to remain lumpy. Cook as for pancakes, using between 1/4 c. and 1/3 c. per pancake and cooking until both sides are golden brown and pancake still yields when touched in the center. If the pancake is cooked so long it becomes firm, it is still tasty but less cheesy and moist. Serve with butter and top with maple syrup or jam.